


Martin's Day

by Lbilover



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Childhood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:44:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8731786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: A day in the life of 12 year-old Martin Crieff.





	

Martin Crieff's day begins as so many do, with his mum coming in to wake him after he ignores her first, second and third knocks at the door and calls of "Martin, it's time to get up." 

"Oh sweetheart," she says, unearthing the torch and copy of _Great Moments in Flying_ buried in the rumpled bedclothes. "Whatever am I going to do with you? Now come on, up you get."

"Sorry, Mum," Martin apologises. He slides out of bed, yawning and scratching at his tummy. His eyes are gummy with sleep and his carroty hair sticks up in wild tufts.

"I only wish you were," Wendy Crieff says, and smooths his hair with a loving hand.

"If I'm going to be a pilot, I need to learn everything I can about aeroplanes," Martin replies earnestly.

Wendy represses a sigh. Where did he come from, this youngest child with his head permanently in the clouds? Crieffs didn't fly aeroplanes. They kept their feet and their eyes firmly fixed on the ground. "What you need to do, Martin, is get ready for school. If you don't hurry, you'll miss the bus again."

Martin obediently trots off to the bathroom to wash up and brush his teeth. 

He doesn't miss the bus and have to walk, which is a pity. Not because he likes to walk - he doesn't; flying is the only mode of transportation that interests him - but it's far preferable to running the gauntlet of his peers, something which occurs as he scurries down the aisle of the bus to a seat at the back. Legs stretch out to trip him, fingers pinch any exposed skin they can reach, and jeers and taunts of 'Carrot Top' follow him until he reaches the sanctuary of the far back corner and huddles over his school bag, rubbing at a particularly vicious, bright-red pinch on the tender skin of his inner arm. 

Ignoring the discomfort, Martin opens his bag and removes the latest issue of _Pilot_ magazine, bought with some of the precious money from the odd jobs he does for their neighbours. For the remainder of the drive he keeps his nose buried in its glossy pages, not so much escaping from reality as escaping to it. As the bus bounces along, stopping periodically with a squeal of brakes to pick up another student, Martin is only a physical presence. The rest of him is soaring somewhere in the skies above Wokingham.

He comes reluctantly back to earth when the bus arrives at his school and disgorges Martin along with the rest of its occupants. He's prepared to run another gauntlet, but standing outside with a group of other older boys is Simon. Simon, unlike Martin, is large for his age, sturdily built, and popular. No one will mess with Martin when his brother is around. Unfortunately, Simon messes with Martin when he is around, in the cringe-worthy fashion that older brothers the world over have employed since time immemorial.

"Martin!" Simon cries when he sees Martin attempting to scuttle past like a crab avoiding an otter. "Come 'ere." 

"No, Simon, I have to get to class," Martin feebly protests.

"Mar-tin..." Simon shakes his head, strides over and grabs Martin in a bear hug. While his cronies, and half the school, it seems, look on with amusement, Simon hoists Martin in the air and twirls him around, shouting, "He's flying!"

Martin is mortified. He'd far rather be tripped, pinched, or slammed up against a locker any day. When Simon finally sets him down, he's red-faced, breathless and fantasising not about aeroplanes, but picking up his brother and planting him face down in a dustbin.

"Simon, I wish you wouldn't do that."

Simon guffaws. "Oh Martin, it's just a little fun. Besides, you know it's the closest you're ever going to get to real flying."

"No, it's not. I _am_ going to be a pilot, Simon," Martin says with as much dignity as he can muster under the circumstances. 

"Right, and I'm going to be King of England." Simon ruffles his hair before Martin can duck away, completing his humiliation. "Now, what are you doing hanging around here, you layabout? You'll be late for class."

Martin opens his mouth, closes it, turns and scurries away. 

Martin has mixed feelings about his classes. Maths and science are areas of study that he needs to conquer to become a pilot. He has no natural aptitude for either, but by dint of endless revising, he manages to get good grades. English and social studies, however, have less application to his future, so Martin does the minimum to get by. Mostly they offer an excuse to stare out the window at the clouds and imagine he is flying among them, or even above them, so high that Wokingham, the school, his home, aren't even visible. 

When an actual plane flies across his field of vision, as it does during English class, his brain automatically identifies it: a Convair 240. It's clearly making its approach into Gatwick, and immediately Martin visualises himself seated in the cockpit at the controls. Captain Martin Crieff, resplendent in his officer's uniform, a gold-braid adorned cap perched on his head. _Flight crew_ , he barks crisply over the intercom, _prepare for landing_. 

A shadow falls over him; Martin looks up to see Mrs. Adams, his English teacher glowering down. "Perhaps, Captain Crieff," she says tartly, "you'll be so good as to return your attention to _White Fang_ and away from the friendly skies?"

Blushing the brilliant red that clashes horribly with his hair, Martin stammers, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Adams." But he isn't, really. Nor do the giggles and stares of his classmates bother him overmuch. Because one day he will be an airline captain, flying not a privately owned Convair but a British Airways jumbo jet. They won't be laughing then.

During recess, whilst the others kick a football or play tag, Martin hides behind a bush with his magazine. No one bothers him. It's bliss.

Lunchtime brings the familiar lunch 'trade' with Percy, the class bully, who, when he plumbed to the excellence of the lunches that Martin's mum packed for him each day, instituted the 'trades'. Martin doesn't argue, simply offers up his brown paper sack in exchange for Percy's. He opens it to discover a limp bologna sandwich, an apple that has seen better days (or perhaps weeks) and some stale crisps in a plastic sandwich bag. With a resigned shrug Martin bites into the sandwich. The class pecking order is well established and he understands his place in it, none better. Someday that will all change, but until then, he'll do his part to maintain the status quo.

After the hideousness that is gym, through which it's impossible to daydream unless he wants a basketball in his gut or his face (when he isn't daydreaming, he can avoid becoming a target; like most small skinny boys with no visible athletic talent, he's developed excellent reflexes as a survival mechanism), comes the pleasure of library period. He has read everything in the school library about flying multiple times, but it never grows dull, and he likes the librarian, Miss Shaw. She knows enough about aeroplanes to hold her own in a conversation, and she's not only indulgent of his obsession but, even more, she's encouraging. 

Today when he walks in, she's there to meet him. She says, "Martin, we just got in a new book on the history of the aeroplane. I've checked it out to you."

It's like Christmas and his birthday wrapped up in one. All the humiliations of the day, small and large, vanish.

When the wind is in the right quarter, the flight approach into Gatwick passes directly over Wokingham. Today is such a day, so when school lets out, Martin skips the bus and walks home. He walks slowly, with eyes turned heavenward so as not to miss a single plane. What must it be like, he wonders, to sit at the controls of a jetliner like the Airbus A310 that had just passed overhead? He's never even flown in an aeroplane as a passenger, much less piloted one, only toured the inside of some World War II era planes at Duxford Air Museum. He knows with absolute certainty, however, that _up there_ is where he belongs.

But it's difficult to pay attention to one's feet with one's head in the clouds. Martin catches the toe of his shoe on an uneven slab of pavement and comes a cropper, landing heavily on his bare knees. He sighs and gets up, trying to ignore the sting of pain. Red snakelets trickle down his shins, staining his white socks. His mum won't be happy if he's ruined yet another piece of school uniform. Pulling a crumpled tissue from his pocket, he mops ineffectually at the blood then wads up the tissue and shoves it back in his pocket. He limps home, thinking wistfully of the gracefulness of planes, so unlike his own earthbound clumsiness. When he was a few years younger, he'd wanted actually to _be_ an aeroplane. For a moment the old longing returns full force. 

"Martin? Is that you?" his mum calls when he lets himself into the house. "Simon is at rugby practice and Caitlin went over to Jenny's house. Come into the kitchen. I've just made tea."

"Yes, Mum." Ignoring the siren call of his library book, Martin drops his school bag at the base of the stairs and trudges resignedly into the kitchen.

"Your father called earlier to say he won't be home until six. Honestly, this family. They're here, there and everywhere, and how I'm supposed to plan _dinner_..." Wendy takes one look at him and an exclamation of dismay escapes her. "Oh Martin." She drops the dishtowel she's been holding and hurries to him. "Oh sweetheart, what happened?"

"I tripped," Martin says. Honesty compels him to add, "I was watching an aeroplane." 

"Oh Martin," she says again. Wendy steers her son to a chair at the table and sits him in it. Then she fetches him a mug of sweet, milky tea. "Here, drink this. I'll be right back." She vanishes from the kitchen. 

Martin sips at his tea until his mom returns, armed with sticking plasters, gauze pads, a tube of Germolene and a basin of water. She kneels by him, removes his shoes and his blood-stained socks. Then she dips a gauze pad in the warm water and cleans Martin's wounds. It stings horribly, but Martin doesn't make a sound. His mum feels enough pain for the both of them, wincing and biting her lip as she swabs at the cuts before anointing them with the Germolene and then covering them in sticking plaster.

"There," she says with relief, after placing a gentle kiss on Martin's bony kneecap. "How does that feel, sweetheart?"

"Much better, Mum," Martin says. Then he adds, "I'm sorry."

"You always are." Wendy squeezes his thigh and stands up. "Finish your tea, then go and get changed. I have to soak these socks before the blood sets."

Martin drains his mug in one long gulp and escapes to his bedroom. He changes out of his school uniform and into shorts and the Spitfire tee shirt that his parents had bought him at the Duxford Air Show for his last birthday. Then he settles stomach down on his bed with his new book, _Barnstormers and Daredevils_. He becomes happily engrossed in stories about the stunt pilots who toured the United States in the nineteen-twenties in their Jennies, performing incredible feats of flying. He'd have read straight through dinner, despite his growling stomach, if he were allowed, but dinnertime is family time and he's expected to put in an appearance.

Conversation at the dinner table is, as usual, dominated by Cat and Simon. As Martin eats his shepherd's pie and sprouts and sips his milk, he imagines himself like one of those barnstormers, standing on the wings of his Jenny or flying upside-down. He suspects he'd never be brave enough to do so, but the imagining is glorious and carries him through to the meal's end.

It's Cat's turn to help with the washing up, but Martin's plan to return to his book is foiled by his father, who says, "Martin, come and give me a hand. I've got to replace that floodlight by the garage."

He might be only twelve years old, but Martin knows his father is grooming him to follow in his footsteps and become an electrician. More and more frequently, it seems, he needs Martin to give him a hand with this or that electrical repair around the house. "Why not Simon? Why _me_?" Martin sometimes wants to ask, but he never does. His father persists in believing that Martin will outgrow his obsession with flying and 'see sense', but when Martin insists that he's going to be a pilot, his father always replies, "Well, it never hurts to have a backup plan, son."

In truth, Martin enjoys these quiet times with his dad, and he figures this is more useful knowledge he can apply to his future flying career. His fingers are small and nimble; with his father providing guidance, Martin removes the old light, attaches the wires for the new, and secures it in place. 

"Very good job, Martin," his dad says approvingly when Martin flips the switch and the floodlight comes on. He claps Martin on the shoulder. "You're a chip off the old block."

But Martin doesn't want to be a chip off the old block, unless the old block is Charles Lindbergh or Orville Wright.

After putting away the tools, they join the rest of the family in the sitting room, where a debate is raging about what to watch on the telly.

"Can we watch _Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines_?" Martin asks hopefully. It's his favourite movie, one he's watched twenty times at least.

"NO!" shout Cat and Simon as one. They've suffered through the movie once, and that's enough for them.

"We're watching Benny Hill," Martin's dad says firmly, striding to the set and turning the dial to BBC1. "Simon, fetch me a beer." End of discussion.

"Benny Hill is in _Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines_ ," Martin points out, but sadly no one listens.

Homework occupies the remainder of the evening, though Simon of course disappears to go hang out with some of his chums, and Cat gets a phone call from one her girlfriends and she disappears, too, taking the phone on its long cord with her. Martin laboriously plods on, hunched over his textbooks, tongue peeking out the corner of his mouth. By the time he's done, it's time for bed. After the morning's debacle, he knows what's coming, and as he washes up, brushes his teeth and puts on his pajamas, he prepares for his fate.

"Martin," Wendy says when she's done tucking him in. "I want you to go straight to sleep tonight. No reading under the covers by torchlight. Promise?"

"All right, Mum," Martin grudgingly agrees. "I promise."

Wendy smiles, smooths back the hair from his forehead and stoops to kiss him on the brow. "I love you, Martin," she whispers before drawing back, and Martin tries not to squirm with embarrassment. 

She switches off the bedside table lamp and Martin watches her dark form cross the room and stand silhouetted in the doorway. "Sleep well, love," she says, and then quietly shuts the door until only a sliver of light shows.

Temptation gnaws at Martin, but a promise is a promise, after all. Still, he doesn't feel sleepy and his knees are throbbing uncomfortably where the bedclothes press on them. So he stares up at the eight model aeroplanes he has suspended from the ceiling: an old-fashioned biplane, a World War II bomber, a Spitfire, several airliners, and a sleek modern military jet. 

As he watches them twist and turn in the soft breeze coming through the open bedroom window, scraps of light glinting off their impeccably painted surfaces, the walls and ceiling disappear replaced by a deep indigo sky and purple-grey clouds above a field surrounded by trees. Shafts of sunlight pierce the clouds and slant downward, and suspended from the clouds on silver cords are Martin's aeroplanes, mysterious and magical.

"Come fly with me," they call, each in turn. "Come fly with me."

And so Martin does. The bedroom vanishes. The house vanishes. Wokingham vanishes. There is only Martin and the infinite sky that beckons like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. By turns he's an RAF squadron leader, a barnstorming daredevil, an airline captain, a fighter jet pilot. He dives, soars, streaks across the sky, the planes responsive to his every command. It's so real to Martin that when two loud thumps come from above, it takes him a minute to return to reality, to realise that it's only Simon kicking off his shoes in his bedroom, which is directly over Martin's.

But that's all right, because he is sleepy now, sleepy and content. He snuggles down into the covers and shuts his eyes. "Captain Martin Crieff," he murmurs happily, and falls asleep with a smile on his face and the lingering scent of jet fuel in his nostrils.

It's been a very good day.


End file.
